Have you ever known someone who loved something so much they literally went to their grave doing it? Well, such a man was Bob Huffman. Bobby Jess Huffman was born on July 23, 1939, in Teague to Jess B. and Saphronia Evelyn Howell Huffman and passed away on Aug. 30, 2024.
He attended First Baptist Church in his hometown of Donie, where he was baptized in the lake behind the church as a teenager. He went to school in Donie until the sixth grade and then had to ride the bus or hitchhike back and forth to and from the school in Teague where he graduated in 1957. After high school, he attended Sam Houston State Teachers College (now Sam Houston State University), majoring in business while raising hogs and operating heavy equipment on summers and weekends to pay for school.
After college, he got a job with International Harvester as a traveling sales rep and service rep in the southern coastal plains of Texas. He did this for several years until he got the opportunity to open his own dealership in 1970 in Buffalo, just a few miles from Donie. It was in Buffalo that he met the love of his life, Trudy Barnett. They married on June 12, 1971, and lived in Donie until moving to Palestine in 1972. During this time, he supported Trudy through college at Stephen F. Austin State University and in 1976 she graduated, walking across the stage at eight months pregnant. A few weeks later they would welcome their only child, a son, Jason.
